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One of the tasks that I've given myself to finish by the end of the calendar year is to rehome the two 'temporary' bookshelves which have been in the games room for multiple years. Which requires relocating all the books. *sigh*. This weeks haul - 4 cookbooks that no-one wants to keep!

Also, I've been throwing out paper, several scoops that came with coffee (no idea where these came from as the brand is one I never bought), and kids have been identifying outgrown clothes (again). The iron I have a replacement for has been rehomed. And the follow up from the front hall re-arrange: the spare shelf from there went in the walk in robe, replacing one that was too large (and now there is space for my other work bag); then the large one went in the spare room (and has had several craft projects stashed on it, freeing up floor), and the temporary one it has replaced went to the op-shop.

Oh, and I've come to an arrangement with a friend, who I see on Thursday mornings - I will take whatever they need to rehome, and drop it at the op-shop on a Friday, because I've negotiated with youngest that we will stop there on the way home from school. Which means that I now have extra motivation to have things to rehome.

... In other words, this slow and steady sometimes speeds up, even though it doesn't quite feel like it on a day to day basis!

This is a belated post, covering last weekend, and mid-week.

It occurred to me that one of the areas I don't clear out regularly enough is the freezer (both the little one inside, and the free standing one in the garage). So, last weekend, I did a pass through the small freezer, and identified a handful of things that need using up in the little one. Ends of loaves (which the kids *claim* they eat) went in the chooks. Other than that, there were 3 (now 2) containers of cooking bananas, and 3 (now 2) containers of guava. I've made one batch of guava paste (like jam, but only a little water and sugar, so it doesn't gel, but it does spread nicely), and one batch of fried banana. Next set of tasks on this are to make another batch of guava paste, which should get through the rest, make more fried banana, and then start moving things that need using up to the inside freezer.

As part of my 'what else can I clear out' jag I'm on (goal: get it all done by November), it occurred to me that I've been putting shopping receipts ad similar in shoe boxes, and putting them in the roof space for over a decade. In which time, I have *never* pulled them out. Today, I pulled them all out, and various small boxes that won't be used for their original items even if we ever move again (eg. the ones the kettle, the skillet set, and a tea trio came in).

About half the receipts have gone in the compost, layered with soil, and several buckets of water poured over them. The rest will go in through the week, as eldest adds a bit of soil each morning. And about two thirds of the boxes are in the recycling bin (flattened). The rest might go in for this pick up cycle, but we'll see the night before we put the bins out. The rest will go next week.

I've also identified a handful of children's books (Bobbsey Twins, Trixie Belden) that I don't think any of my kids read, and I don't love enough to keep. Still to run those past the rest of the family though!

Today's focus area was the front hall/foyer. For Quite Some Time, we have had an overflowing brick and board shoe shelf, with an overflow shelf beside it, and two boxes and a large basket underneath it. This have been solved by a) buying three new boards in order to restructure the shelf and b) going through the large basket of hats and the box of swimming gear, and deciding to rehome large amounts of hats, house socks, and assorted items that have been stashed on the top shelf. Also, the moving of the swimming gear to the linen cupboard (we no longer run out the door to swimming twice a week with mere minutes for grabbing everything). The large basket, in poor nick, will become a chook nesting basket. 6+ hats, outgrown swim gear, and various items which have not been returned to owner because owner has vanished have been put in two plastic bags to go to the op shop on the way home on Tuesday. There is now more space in the front hall!

Also sorted
- a large bowl of assorted small things. ~ 1/4 each to bin, rehome (op shop), put away by kids, and 'deal with it when I have some oomph'.
- papers - either filed or binned
- craft projects - two items (poor condition; not readily reusable) binned rather than repurposed.

All in all, a successful day, but I'm knackered!

email - cleared 700+ emails relating to organisational volunteer work out of two inboxes! Including dealing with the fact that many of these were duplicates, because I read on one email account and answer on another. Some of these date back to 2014. Deleted duplicates, filed by year, decided anything more than six months old that I hadn't read didn't need it.

food - cleaned & threw out a tomato sauce bottle and a bbq sauce bottle each with a token amount left - these were squeezy bottles of a type we don't usually buy, from a birthday gathering in December.

paperwork - more bits of random stuff had appeared on the counter. got rid of much.

Despite the fact that we have sequentially gone through their clothes in recent months (season by season), the kids have managed to find *more* outgrown clothes to rehome. At least we seem to be running out of winter clothes in this category.

And in the last week, I have continued the purge of paper. My 'really can't deal with that' pile is about 1.5cm thick, and I have filled our little bin (say, 10L) about five times. In addition, I found a box of old convention books, did the legal deposit thing (because there didn't appear to be copies in the state archive, even though I thought I had done this already), made sure the relevant community archive had copies, and ditched the rest. One box-o-stuff completely gone! And I have been completely ruthless with old newsletters and community magazines. If none of the family feature, and I can't find something else that makes me smile in nostalgia as I flick through, out it goes (the one thing that really made me nostalgic was a Student Guild Elections book which featured two people who later became Guild President, and one person how is a current federal politician. They were *so young*)

I've been steadily decluttering paper from both the house and work over the last two months (some of this is previously reported), and I'm kind of starting to feel like I'm getting somewhere! Over the last two weeks I've shredded a pile of bills/financial paperwork too old to need retaining, and thrown out what feels like several reams of assorted other paper (one of my next tasks is to get my scrap paper pile down to not much more than a ream - if I get short, there are always abandoned print outs on the photocopier at work)

Friday at work I cleared out many many items from the 'spare' desk (recently vacated by honours student, and there have been several students through who haven't completely cleared out things when they leave, so, say 5 years of detritus), and binned what wasn't useable. Still quite a bit to go, but it was a cathartic ten minutes! (also cleared out items from the 'tea trolley'. Still more to go there as well).

As well as that, I'm still on my quest to rid the house of unusable* coat hangers - another 5 found, and outgrown clothing - a dress, two pairs of trousers, at least one more pair of pjs. Plus, a severe pruning of the costume box netted two plastic bags (shopping bags) of outgrown and unloved options - said costume box now has space!

All of these items have been rehomed already, which is great - I still have a pile of other items that need to be rehomed. Including an iron (found tonight) that should have gone years ago, but ended up in the garage instead!

* either kids sized, or really thin metal ones that were fine for kid weight clothing and/or summer shirts, but nothing else

Two posts in one weekend! I might almost feel like I'm making progress.

The main thing I cleared out was (most of) the reading list on the old ipad that I'm aiming to load up with all the ebooks I currently have, and then lend to a friend who doesn't currently have working internet. I also took three email addresses off the same device, and all the email!

Also found three card games, and youngest found a pair of pj trousers, but they don't feel quite so monumental.

Today's find of Things I Don't Need was a lever arch file of old uni assignments, and a few sheets of notes from 2003 and 2004! After some deliberation, I kept the unused stationery, and binned the rest. There were a couple I was tempted to keep, as the notes are potentially relevant to things I do in my day job, and then realised that what I would do would be google and hope, rather than waiting until I got home to go looking for something stashed away.

So, a bit over half a ream!

Eldest has also been going through papers, at my instigation, with the 'please keep them in a single location, not in every drawer and on every shelf', so there has been some throwing out there as well.

This is part of the ongoing project 'reclaim the spare room', where I've been steadily dealing with paper clutter for the last month or so, at the rate of 30s per day. I've managed to get about a square metre back, so feeling pretty chuffed (and there are lots of other things in there that need dealing with as well).

I'm still approximately managing rehoming one thing per day, although it is still more like 7 things on a weekend - this last weekend gone I took some small person items to a friend with a toddler and an infant; today I emptied a small box of rehomeables into an op-shop collection bin.

In the last week, I've found two skirts (one outgrown childrens, one unloved adults), multiple too small coat hangers, jars (many). Tonight, I'm going through printed journal articles left behind when a co-worker went to more interesting pastures, determining whether full text pdfs are readily available through the work library, and then gleefully ditching them. I started with about half a ream of paper, I'm a bit over half way through, and I've only had to keep three!

Other items in my list of rehomed since Mar 7 - old mobile phone, 7 craft books, 2 dozen plastic container lids, more coathangers, 8 pieces of unloved clothing, 4 scarves/light shawls, cocktail glass, more paper, child's table and 2 chairs, 6 old phone books, and some more outgrown kids clothing.

As a result, the music room floor is clear, the shelf I've been planning to use for display is clear (although there is a small pile of paper to still sort through, and some other items I've no idea how to rehome), and I have an 'empty' bookshelf ready to move to the study, just as soon as the study has space. Also, the front hall has been clear of Stuff! for about a month, and we are back to using it for forward planning.

And on the topic of knitting - I'm slowly working through the donated yarn, although a new donation means I'm above where I started at the beginning of the year. But I've been loaned a knitting machine, which I plan to use with scrag ends of yarn to make blankets for the Cat Haven, so I might actually get back one of my plastic tubs by the end of the year!

I've been a bit lax about recording everything, and possibly I've missed a few days as well, but there have been quite a few things gone in the last month. The most dramatic one was rehoming the cat, and all the associated Bits. Fortunately, I've seen an almost instant improvement in allergy symptoms, so while I'm sad about it, on balance it is positive.

11 Feb - bag fabric (say, 15 pieces)
14 Feb - assorted small items
19 Feb - papers
20 Feb - 2 school work books (youngest); school papers (youngest); [several items from free box to friends]; 1 box twist crayons; 1 glue stick; mathomat
21 Feb - assorted crafting scraps that aren't useable; dead scrunchie; bits of rubbish out of car
27 Feb - 2008 diary; broken guinea pig water bottle; 1 applique pattern; 2 craft magazines; 15 assorted crafting books
28 Feb - yoga dvd
Mar 1 - 7 coat hangers
March 3 - cat and accoutrements (litter tray, wet food, dry food, spare cat litter, collar, cone of shame)
March 6 - tupperware chopper

days: 67; items: 357 + 15 (11th) + 8 (14-20th) + 10 (21st) + 20 (27th) + 16 (to 6th) = 426.

Trying to get the motivation up to target an area with focus again - the music room desperately needs it.

anotherheather

This was the guide I used when determining what to keep in our filing cabinet (US Centric): How Long Should I Keep Old Documents? - Lifehacker

9 Feb
- box of bubble wrap
- 3 poster tubes
- 2 bags fabric (say, 20 pieces)
- bits of Stuff! saved for wrapping (say, 4 items)

10 Feb
- cake carrying plate/cover
- Art - 2 pairs dead shoes
- eldest - books (still to be sorted through; many will be claimed by other kids; listing but not counting)

days: 42; items 326 (previous) + 28 (9th) + 3 (10th) = 357

[clothes and desk still not touched. But the back hall shelves are starting to have clear spots, so I can move crafting things from the spare room!!!! Sadly, now I want to do All! the knitting, which I'm not allowed until my shoulder heals.]

pair of shorts (middlest)
2 wonky coat hangers
pair of dead shoes (replaced)
more empty jars
doll's pram
poster
skirt (much sentimental attachment)
kid's trousers (middlest)
broken toy (keeping the electronic bits)
6 reusable shopping bags
1 insert from reusable shopping bag

days: 40; items 309 (previous) + 17 = 326

declutter goals: get through the pile of papers on my desk; check through the desk drawers. Also, go through all the 'nice' clothes I keep planning on wearing, and rehome.

It isn't that the last week has been hectic, or anything like that, I just haven't made the time to find things to declutter, and made note of them everyday (or even go near the computer!). What I have noted

jan 21 (part 2)
- colourful, basic arithmetic calculator
- 2 tiny toys
- picture abecedary
- christmas themed nibbles tray
jan 27 - box of bottles/jars
jan 28 - box of books

The last two - counting them feels odd. The books were pulled out of the collection months ago, and have just sat; yesterday I took them to work and found homes for all of them. The jars I accumulate, and when I have a boxful, I advertise it. The last time I did a box of jars, I counted them separately, so I guess I'll do that this time, but the books are going as 1, because, really, that is all the effort it took.

Checking the throw out box - looks like an extra jigsaw puzzle, some books from eldest, a pair of shoes. Not sure about these, so not counting them.

Today is all about the fridge/pantry. So far, I've used the last teabag from one jar, used up the wonton skins from the freezer, and emptied a jam jar (the latter two go together very quickly to make jam tartlets). I'm probably not going to count any of the items, because the storage jars are still here, but I'm at least feeling accomplished!

days: 29; items 293 (previous) + 5 (jan 21) + 10 (jars) + 1 (books) = 309.

20th Jan

3 floppy coat hangers; one child sized coat hanger [+4]
middle child school jacket (outgrown/never worn) [+1]

21st Jan

papers, empty box, empty paper carry bag (work) [+3]
many computer files (trying to get some spare space on work hard drive) [+0]
old birthday cards (3; youngest) [+3]
assorted items out of the freezer, including sponge cake from ???some time last year... [+0]

There may have been some other items - we got two near empty boxes out of the garage, put everything out on the table, and several items vanished; about a 1/3 went back in one box (the other has gone to be the new unwanted jars box) and back in the garage. And I'll have primed myself on some of the items in the box.

days: 22; items: 282 + 5 (20th) + 6 (21st) = 293

I've been keeping note most days of the items I've identified to declutter; and I've taken a couple of boxes to the op-shop/rehomed items to friends (14th Jan). I now have a single box collecting more items in the front hall, which is lovely.

9 jan - 14 assorted coat hangers: kids ones (too small), padded ones (never used) and floppy ones we are replacing; 2 oven mitts (surplus/deprecated)

10 Jan - one duplicate book

11 Jan - 1 t-shirt

12th Jan - ~1 dozen jars from the box out the front passed on to someone who can use them

13th - free standing knitting/crochet bag

14th Jan - glue sticks (~15); shoe box of assorted bits of crafting materials.

15 Jan - nightgown

16 Jan - t-shirt; 6 'custard cups'

17 Jan - ??

18 Jan - papers; kids sorted dead/broken stationery [uncounted, call it 2]

19 Jan - pair of shoes I hate; many dance items kids have outgrown, including leotards, shoes (will possibly enumerate these later); one pair of dance socks so filthy I told the kid to just bin them.

days: 20; items 223 (previous) + 16 (9th) + 3 (10th/1th/13th) + 12 (12th) + 16 (14th) + 8 (15th/16th) + 4 (18th/19th) = 282

5th January

assorted papers (calling this 1 thing)
plush green teletubbie
'how to meditate' cd

6th Jan

~ 50 kids boks
kids 'make a word' game
duplicate copy 'tantrix' (unused, probably previously unopened) -> present box.

7th jan

middlest, 1 pair shorts
23 assorted kids books
8 boxes, being jigsaw puzzles, kids games, educational games
5 sharp knifes, and 6 assorted mismatched cutlery

jan 8

papers
1 pair dead underwear (bin)
second bottle of soy saude (used up)

All the kids books went Thursday, as did kids games. I have a slowly increasing pile in the front hall to op-shop - hoping to delegate that to be done on Monday.

days: 9; 122 (previous) + 3 (5th) + 52 (6th) + 43 (7th) + 3 (8th) = 223

Yesterday was hiking followed by migraine, so I skipped a few things, like making the post here.

3rd January: 15 children's books
4th January: one duplicate book, a balloon pump, 3 kids books and my ~~2016~~ 2015 diary [adding: this is the appointment diary, so not really a personal record]

Books are being picked over by friends on Thursday; diary went in the recycling; balloon pump might be taken Thursday, or will go to op shop on Friday.

days: 5; items = 101 (previous) + 15 (Jan 3) + 6 (Jan 4) = 122

- 2015 calendar, having dealt with all the sticky notes remaining (1)
- eldest, 2 books (2)
- middlest - stack of papers (school related) (1)
- youngest - three small animal toys; bubble wand (4)
- artisanat - 2 pairs of trousers that have fallen out of favour (2)
- old fashioned craft carrier, self standing (tapestry) (1)
- unopened box of tissues (1)

binned: papers, calendar. to go to friends: tissues, ?books. To go to op-shop: everything else.

days: 3; items: 90 (yesterday) + 11 (numbers in parentheses at the ends of the lines) = 101.

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